July 7, 2019 - Chapter Fifty-four (pp. 246-253)


As the story of the Town-Ho mutiny continues, we are introduced by Ishmael to a system of taxonomizing sailors. The two main characters in the story, Radney and Steelkit – captain and mutineer, respectively – are a Nantucket native and Lake Erie native, thus representing the sea and freshwater. Complicating this classification are the “Canallers”— two men on the Town-Ho who had worked mainly on the Erie Canal connecting upstate New York to the Hudson River. The environment of corruption on the Erie Canal apparently makes these men particularly venal and violent to boot. Whether these categories are ones that Melville created for the purposes of this story or based on actual stereotypes among sailors is unclear.

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